Former COO of SGX-listed MDR jailed for misappropriating S$2.5 million

[SINGAPORE] A man who was the chief operating officer (COO) of MDR, a firm listed on the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange, misappropriated over S$2.5 million in company assets, including mobile devices.

Court documents stated that these assets were meant for MDR’s promotional activities.

However, Richard Siua Cheng Foo, 54, sold them through a third-party dealer, offering the latter a cut of every sale. Siua also used a portion of his ill-gotten gains to fund his gambling habit.

On Jan 6, he was sentenced to five years and six months’ jail after he pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust involving 625 mobile devices worth nearly S$980,000 in total.

Four other charges relating to the remaining amount were considered during his sentencing. He has not made any restitution to MDR.

At the time of the offences, Siua was also the chief executive and director of several of MDR’s subsidiaries – 3 Mobile Telecom, Handphoneshop and A-Mobile.

These subsidiaries were collectively referred to as “the group” in court documents, and a search with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority revealed that he no longer holds these positions with them.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Louis Ngia said that the group was in the business of distributing and selling mobile handsets and accessories.

The prosecutor added that as the CEO of MDR’s subsidiaries, Siua had the authority to instruct his staff to withdraw and deliver to him the firms’ mobile devices from warehouses for legitimate business purposes.

However, he started misappropriating these company assets from November 2020 and sold them for his own financial gain.

The DPP said: “The accused started on this course of offending conduct as he had become addicted to gambling, and he wanted the monies to fund his gambling bets...

“He also realised that his staff trusted him to use the assets to the benefit of the company, and did not monitor his use of them or question his instructions.”

According to court documents, Siua sold these company assets with the help of his friend, one Tan Yeow Kian, then the director of a firm called Next Telecom, which dealt with mobile phones and accessories.

The case involving Tan, 54, whom the DPP referred to as Freddy, is still pending.

The DPP said that Siua, who was facing financial difficulties, had taken personal loans from Tan.

He added: “The accused acquired Freddy’s assistance to sell the company assets on his behalf. Freddy did not buy the (goods) directly from the accused, but would act as a dealer by helping the accused look for buyers...

“After securing a buyer for those goods, Freddy would take a cut of the sale proceeds as his own profit. On occasions, the remainder of the sale proceeds was used to offset the amount that the accused owed Freddy.”

In 2020 and 2021, Siua misappropriated a total of 4,057 units of company assets worth over S$2.5 million, the court heard.

His offences first came to MDR’s attention in December 2021.

After using up almost all the subsidiaries’ marketing funds that he was handling, Siua approached the CEO of MDR for a company loan.

Suspecting that Siua was facing financial woes, the CEO asked MDR’s finance department to conduct a check on his use of the group’s finances.

The department then discovered a sharp spike in the group’s marketing expenditure for 2021 compared with previous years.

It also found that Siua had requested for numerous mobile devices to be released.

The DPP told the court that these were “unusual circumstances” and MDR’s CEO confronted Siua about the matter during a meeting.

Siua came clean about what he had done, and MDR’s chief financial officer alerted the police on Dec 15, 2021. Siua surrendered himself to the police soon after. THE STRAITS TIMES